Note: Steam installs library dependencies of a game to a library directory, but some are missing at the moment. Report bugs involving missing libraries on Valve's bug tracker on their GitHub page before adding workarounds here, and then provide a link to the bug so it can be removed as the problems are fixed. Libraries like glu and libtxc_dxtn are exceptions to this, as they are just part of the implementation of the open drivers.

Mods

For using mods, you need to put them into game settings directory (~/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings II/mod/) and launch the game with special key -mod=<mod_path>.
For example:

-mod=mod/CK2_rus_full_v1.092.mod -mod=mod/Extendedtitlesmod.mod

DLC

All DLC that you have bought on Steam is enabled by default. As with mods, due to lack of a launcher you need to use a launch option to disable one. The option is -exclude-dlc with an argument of the corresponding .dlc file in ~/.steam/steam/SteamApps/common/Crusader Kings II/dlc/. For example, to disable Sunset Invasion, use:

-exclude-dlc=dlc/dlc018.dlc

Troubleshooting

No audio

The default audio driver used by Crusader Kings 2 is for PulseAudio, so an override is necessary:

Don't Starve

Dependencies (x86_64)

Dota 2

Dependencies (x86_64)

Troubleshooting

Ingame font is unreadable

Start Steam (or Dota 2) with the environment variable

MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=2.1

Everything seems OK but the game doesn't start

If you run the game from the terminal and, although no error is shown, the game won't start, try going to Steam → Settings → In-Game and disable "Enable Steam Community In-Game".
Apparently the game The Book of Unwritten Tales has the same problem. It also describes a workaround that is untested in Dota 2.

Game runs on the wrong screen

Dwarfs F2P

Dependencies

Troubleshooting

Game does not start

There was a bug that stopped Steam from fetching all the needed files. It should be resolved, if you still bump into this problem, try verifying integrity of game cache from game properties, local files tab.

If the game still crashes at startup, edit ~/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/common/Dwarfs - F2P/Run.sh and change

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}

to

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}:.

Note: This file may be overwritten by updates or by verifying integrity of game cache. You may need to modify it again.

If these do not help, you may have outdated libraries in the game installation folder that are crashing the game on startup. Try moving/removing the following files out of ~/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/common/Dwarfs - F2P/ to fix it:

Game crashes

Dynamite Jack

Dependencies

Troubleshooting

Sound Issues

When running on 64-bit Arch Linux, there may be "pops and hisses" when running Dynamite Jack. This could be caused by not having STEAM_RUNTIME=0 set. (However, even with STEAM_RUNTIME=0 set, the game may still sometimes start with this issue. Exiting and restarting the game seems to make the problem go away.)

Game does not start

If running steam with the STEAM_RUNTIME=0, Dynamite Jack may have a problem starting. The error could be caused by not having the lib32-sdl1.2 library. Check the steam error messages for this message:

FORCED

This game has 32bit and 64bit binary. for "unknow" reason, steam will launch the 32bits binary even on 64bits Arch Linux.
When manually lauchning the 64bit binary, the game starts, but cannot connect to steam account, so you can't play.
So install 32bits dependencies, and launch the game from steam.

Dependencies

FTL: Faster than Light

Dependencies

Libraries are downloaded and and placed in the game's data directory for both architectures. As long as you run FTL by the launcher script (or via the shortcut in Steam) you should not need to download any further libraries.

Compatibility

After installation, FTL may fail to run due to a 'Text file busy' error (characterised in Steam by your portrait border going green then blue again). The easiest way to mend this is to just reboot your system. Upon logging back in FTL should run.

The Steam overlay in FTL does not function as it is not a 3D accelerated game. Because of this the desktop notifications will be visible. If playing in fullscreen, therefore, these notifications in some systems may steal focus and revert you back to windowed mode with no way of going back to fullscreen without relaunching. The binaries for FTL on Steam have no DRM and it is possible to run the game without Steam running, so in some cases that may be optimum - just ensure that you launch FTL via the launcher script in ~/.steam/root/SteamApps/common/FTL Faster than Light/data/ rather than the FTL binary in the $arch directory.

Problems with open-source video driver

FTL may fail to run if you are using an opensource driver for your video card. There are two solutions: install a proprietary video driver or delete (rename if you are unsure) the library "libstdc++.so.6" inside ~/.steam/root/SteamApps/common/FTL\ Faster\ Than\ Light/data/amd64/lib This is if you are using a 64bit system, I suppose that in case you are using a 32bit system you have to remove (rename) the same library located into ~/.steam/root/SteamApps/common/FTL\ Faster\ Than\ Light/data/x86/lib.

Locale Settings

Killing Floor

Troubleshooting

Screen resolution

Killing Floor runs pretty much from scratch, although you might have to change in-game resolution screen as the default one is 800x600 and a 4:3 screen format.
If you try to modify screen resolution in-game, it might crash your desktop enviroment.
To fix this, please set the desired resolution screen size by modifing your ~/.killingfloor/System/KillingFloor.ini with your prefered editor.

Note: Replace all the ???? with the corresponding numbers according the desired resolution. If you have an 1366x768 screen and want to use it at it's fullest, change all the Viewport fields to something like ViewportX=1366 and ViewportY=768 in the corresponding areas.

Note: The dots in the middle indicate that there are more fields in that .ini file. But for screen resolution troubleshooting, you do not need to modify anything else.

Save the file and restart the game, it should work now.

Windowed Mode

Uncheck fullscreen in the options menu, and use Ctrl+g to stop mouse capturing (that was non-obvious to discover..). This way you can easily minimize it and do other other things..and let your WM handle things.

Penumbra: Overture

Dependencies

Troubleshooting

Windowed Mode

There is no in-game option to change to the windowed mode, you will have to edit ~/.frictionalgames/Penumbra/Overture/settings.cfg to activate it.
Find FullScreen="true" and change it to FullScreen="false", after this the game should start in windowed mode.

Troubleshooting

No audio

If that does not work, try tweaking ~/.alsoftrc as proposed by the Steam community (Serious Sam 3: BFE uses OpenAL to output sound). If you are not using Pulse Audio, you may want to write the following configuration:

Troubleshooting

No audio

If that does not work, try tweaking ~/.alsoftrc as proposed by the Steam community (Serious Sam 3: BFE uses OpenAL to output sound). If you are not using Pulse Audio, you may want to write the following configuration:
$ nano ~/.alsoftrc
[general]
drivers = alsa
[alsa]
device = default
capture = default
mmap = true

Splice

Splice comes with both x86 and x64 binaries. Steam does not have to be running to launch this game.

Strike Suite Zero

Dependencies

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

Dependencies

Team Fortress 2

Dependencies

Making HRTF work

Assuming HRTF has been set up properly in the operating system, hrtf won't be enabled unless you disable the original processing. To do so, use

dsp_slow_cpu 1

For best results, also change the following:

snd_spatialize_roundrobin 1
dsp_enhance_stereo 0
snd_pitchquality 1

Troubleshooting

Loading Screen Freeze

If you are a non-english (speaking) user, you have to enable "en_US.UTF-8" in the locale.gen! Generate a new locale after that.

Black Textures

For Mesa users, all of the textures in-game will be black if your system can't handle texture compression (specifically, GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc). You can fix this by installing the txc_dxtn library.

No audio

It happens if there is no PulseAudio in your system.
If you want to use ALSA, you need to launch Steam or the game directly with SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa
(From SteamCommunity).

If it still does not work, you may also need to set the environment variable AUDIODEV. For instance AUDIODEV=Live. Use aplay -l to list the available sound cards.

Slow loading textures

If you're using Chris' FPS Configs or any other FPS config, you may have set mat_picmip to 2. This spawns multiple threads for texture loading, which may cause more jittering and lag on Linux, especially on alternative kernels. Try setting it to -1, the default.

The Book of Unwritten Tales

If the game does not start, go to Properties --> Uncheck "Enable Steam Community In-Game".

The game may segfault upon clicking the Setting menu and possibly during or before gameplay. This is a known problem and you will unfortunately have to wait for a fix from the developer. A workaround (taken from the steam forums) is to replace the game's RenderSystem_GL.so with one from debian's repositories. To do that download this deb file, extract it (with dpkg -x libogre-*.deb outdir) and replace the following file:

~/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Book of Unwritten Tales/lib/32/RenderSystem_GL.so

The Clockwork Man

Dependencies

The Polynomial

Dependencies

Troubleshooting

Segfaults during program start on 64-bit systems

The game segfaults during program start because of the LD_LIBRARY_PATH setting in the launcher script. Edit ~/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/common/ThePolynomial/Polynomial64, and comment out the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable. Make sure to put the ./bin/Polynomial64 "$@" command on a new line.

Trine 2

Dependencies

Troubleshooting

If colors are wrong with FOSS drivers (r600g at least), try to run the game in windowed mode, rendering will be corrected. (bugreport)

If sound plays choppy, try to edit /etc/openal/alsoft.conf with values

drivers=pulse,alsa
frequency=48000

If the game resolution is wrong when using a dual monitor setup and you can't see the whole window edit ~/.frozenbyte/Trine2/options.txt and change the options ForceFullscreenWidth and ForceFullscreenHeight to the resolution of your monitor on which you want to play the game.